At first it’d been difficult to remember the script. Lee Black of Ashford, Oregon. Carol Cooper from Fountain Hills, Arizona. Anne Johnson, Fredericksburg, Texas. Jillian Smith, Visalia, California.
And then it stopped being hard, because she stopped caring. It was easier not to try to fit in. Easier not to make friends. Why bother to make friends when you’d soon have to leave them without a word of explanation, or the hope of ever seeing them again? In the government’s Witness Protection Program there
was no such thing as change of address cards, forwarding phone numbers, email exchanges. In the Witness Protection Program you simply vanished into thin air.
That lack of stability, and lack of control, transformed her from the innocent, sheltered little girl she’d been, a girl who’d adored her father, a girl who’d felt so very safe, into the woman she was today.
From the time she’d left home to go to college, she’d had one goal—to be completely independent. She’d gone to graduate school after finishing Gonzaga University to earn a master’s degree in hospitality management, an advanced degree in the hotel and tourism industry, thinking it was a practical study, one that would catapult her to the top. Because the one thing she’d always wanted was power of her own. Power to choose. Power to travel. Power to become someone else.
And she’d come so close to having that power and freedom. In Istanbul she’d been delighted by her job, her apartment, her clever circle of friends. But then she’d met Vittorio, and accepted his dinner invitation and her life had never been the same.
She’d given up everything that one night without even knowing it.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you’re blonde,” he said, approaching her.
“It doesn’t please you?” she said, shifting Joe in her arms.
“It wasn’t done to please me.” As he neared her, his dark eyes met hers and held. “It was done to hide from me. It was done to keep him from me,” he added, nodding at Joe.
She held her ground, refusing to be intimidated. “True.”
“And you’re not the least apologetic.”
“I did what I thought was necessary,” she answered, aware that Joe was watching his father with obvious fascination. “But that’s behind us. We must close the door on the past. Now you’re my husband. My protector. I have nothing to fear with you at my side.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “And you have nothing to fear as long as you are honest with me.” His dark eyes burned her with searing intensity. “As long as I can trust you.”
And then he held his arms out for his son.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS JILLIAN relinquished Joe, her lips curved in a terrible self-mocking smile.
She had nothing to fear as long as she was honest with Vitt.
Which meant she had everything to fear because she could never be honest with him. She could never share her past with him, at least, not until she knew she was safe with him. Not until she knew she could trust him, because she’d be trusting him with her life.
It was that simple, because her secrets were that dangerous.
Look at what had happened to Katie. She’d shared the wrong thing with the wrong person and it’d killed her. Jillian couldn’t make the same mistake. Not when Joe needed her so much.
But watching Vittorio hold her son—their son—Jillian marveled over the fact that Joe didn’t cry or go rigid when Vitt took him from her. If anything Joe looked supremely comfortable, as well as extremely content in Vitt’s arms. It was the strangest thing, too, because Joe was never relaxed with strangers, and even less with men, as he’d been around so few in his first year of life. Yet here he was, held securely against Vitt’s broad chest, nonchalantly studying his chubby baby hands as if this sort of thing happened every day.
Remarkable.
Extraordinary.
Vittorio and Joseph already fit together. And they certainly looked like they belonged together. Both had the same dark glossy hair, although Joe’s was baby-fine, and the same intensity of expression, even though Joe’s eyes were blue and Vitt’s amber brown.
“You’ve held babies before,” Jillian said, trying to come to terms with her intensely ambivalent emotions. None of this was supposed to have happened. Being here, like this, was her worst fear and yet nothing terrible had happened yet. Maybe nothing terrible would.
“I have four nieces and three nephews and I’ve held each one within hours of his or her birth,” he answered.
The overhead light played off Vitt’s sculpted cheekbones, strong nose and angular jaw. On someone else the nose might have been too long, the bridge too broken, but on him it was perfect. Vitt’s eyes, shaded by that dark slash of eyebrow, and the curve of his full sensual mouth, were almost too beautiful. He needed a nose of character, and he had one.
“Your brothers and sisters live close then?” she asked, forcing her attention from his arresting face to the conversation. She would soon meet his family, and tomorrow she’d be expected to live amongst them. Who would have thought any of this possible?
Vitt dipped his head, pressed a kiss to Joe’s temple. “Two do. The other two are in different countries. But I’m always there when a baby arrives. Nothing is more important than family.”